Once More
by Mistress of Tales
Summary: AU-story, MikhaelHarley, a few years into the future.
1. Chapter One

Notes: I say this is AU because I've made one of the characters just a tad too screwed. My beta says that this doesn't make the story AU, just the character OOC. Like that's any better… Anyway: Not my first attempt at angst in fanfics, but my first published attempt. I hope the practice has given some result, since the first ones sucked… But you are my judges. *bow* And the title does not indicate any Buffy-relations, by the way...

Once More, With Feeling

I was waiting for the bus. That simple, that everyday-ish, that normal. Staring into the air and daydreaming, since the batteries in my Discman were flat and I didn't have anything to read. I jingled my keychain in my hand just to have something to do. My eyes were more or less aimed at the windows of the café across the street. Wandering along the curly letters of the name, 'Cecilia's', and making me think of another café, with the same sort of writing shaping the name 'Aurora's'. I hadn't talked to Aurie for weeks; she was probably still upset about me moving on such short notice. For the third time in two years. But this was the first time my family had actually helped me move. I think the thought comforted me a little. They started to believe that I really wouldn't go back to him, and that I wouldn't push them away anymore.

The window was blinded by the sun, and I squinted, not bothering to look away.

I thought of finding time to visit Aurie. I wanted to meet little Scott. He grows up so fast, and it had been almost a year since I last saw him. Five years old already? I realized that I was using him to count time. His age almost equaled… Yeah. Five years.

A cloud passed, shading the sun for a few moments, making the window see-through.

There was a rattle of keys against asphalt, and then the bus rushed in to fill the sudden gap in my chest. I blinked, staring at the bus side. Seconds passed – then it left again.

The window was blinded, a bright, white wall of light with curly letters on it. Nothing that hinted to what it had just revealed.

My body switched to automatic. I wasn't sure if that meant run away or go inside, and watched dazed as my own steps took me across the road.

I opened the door and walked straight to the counter, not looking towards the window. Was it him? Did I want to know? Did he see me?

… what was he doing here?

I had moved three times. First away from him, and in with my new lover. Then from him again – to a new place. And then from the city. To avoid both of them. Three months ago I tried to leave the last… shit, the last eight years of my life behind. Three years with one, three with another – and the last two…

I ordered at random, paid and turned around, scanning the room slowly. _If I see a free table, I'll sit and not look at him, I'll sit until he leaves - until they close, so I won't have to look if he is there, if he is really there._

It was full. No free chairs. Except the one by his table.

It was him. I looked for a while, just to be sure, and I felt oddly calm. What had I expected? That I would have a public breakdown over someone I left with good reasons five years ago?

Slowly, very slowly, just in case such a reaction was on its way, I approached. Moved between the tables as if they didn't exist. Stopped by his table, cup in hand like a shield. He looked up from his paper. Eyes widening, brows furrowing. Eyes flaring up.

I winced inwardly. But what did I expect? He carried grudges against Tybalt even after he himself fell in love with me.

… in love with me. The thought felt so odd. He looked alien and familiar at the same time. Same face, same hair, same Mik. But different. Hint of lines already, he was only thirty… thirty-one, actually. And they weren't lines made from smiling too much.

"Hi, Mikhael."

"Hello, Harley."

I gestured to the chair. "Mind if I sit?"

He looked at me, eyes still dark, suspicious. Was I his Tybalt now? The one he expected to stab him in the back when he least expected it?

Finally, he nodded, and my shoulders sank a little as I sat. He took his time folding the paper, and I took it as encouraging. He could have kept reading and ignored me. I sipped my cocoa, drawing out the silence a little more, not knowing how to break it. Running out of options, I went for the standard.

"How have you been?"

"Fine. You?"

"Fine. Great."

For some reason, I thought of an art show a million years ago, and an annoying, stubborn redhead. And the first meeting between Mik and Tybalt since they split up. I tried to recall the tone of his voice. Now it was politely chilled. Back then it was… cold. Resenting. It had had feeling.

"What are you doing here?" His voice was still polite, but those soulful eyes couldn't hide anything for me. Neither could mine for him, I suppose, and I didn't want them to.

"I moved here three months ago." I saw the question glint in there as clearly as if it was spoken, and added: "Alone."

His mouth suddenly crooked up to a half-smirk; it lasted only an instance, and then it was gone. "He dumped you, then?" Chill. Resentment. I was his Tybalt now, all right. He wished me all the pain fate would dump on me.

"No. I left him."

"And what did he do to make you leave him?"

"Mikhael…"

He shrugged, and returned his attention to the headlines.

"So you live here?" I asked.

"Yes."

"For how long?" I wondered what that question sounded like. I moved here to get away from him, from both of them, and instead I moved closer to him. Fate? Maybe not…

"A year."

"Oh…" He was still staring at the headline. He had probably memorized it now.

"So are you… seeing anyone?" It sounded like a crappy pickup-line, and I regretted asking it. But he just shrugged, half-shaking his head, not really answering. I clenched my teeth, suddenly remembering a few of the reasons why I left this asshole.

"He cheated on me." He looked up when I said it, and I scowled back. "A couple of B-cups and a barely legal age was all it took for him to find that old love had gone stale. I left him two years ago. Happy now? Or does it take more details of my misery to make you put down the fucking paper and stop pretending that you don't know me?"

"I don't know you," he stated calmly, but he put away the paper.

"What are you doing nowadays?"

"Same as always, with reasonable success."

I smiled at him, and I saw that it took him by surprise. But I was happy to hear that. I had been afraid he'd really lose it when I left him; it seemed that way for a while, until we completely lost touch. "That's great. You have any shows going now?"

"No. What are you doing? Still in the band?"

"No. It…" I hesitated. It still hurt. Why shouldn't it? We all hurt back then, and it never really stopped. How could it stop? "It just never worked out. Cyanide hated me after I… you know. We haven't spoken since. And… Skids quit playing. Got all caught up in his job and... Sheequa went to another school, got a scholarship."

"And now?" he asked, staring firmly at his empty cup of coffee. I swallowed, forcing back the sudden rush of emotions.

"I'm in college. About time, according to Ma."

We managed to keep the conversation polite for a while, asking about each other, never scratching the surface too much. An hour passed without notice, when I finally looked at my watch.

"Aw, shit, I have to go. Sandy'll kill me."

"Sandy?"

I grinned as I got up. "A friend, we share an apartment off campus. She is a lesbian, and we are the school's favorite joke."

He returned a cautious smile.

"Do you come here often?" I just had to ask, didn't I?

"Not really, no. But sometimes."

"Perhaps I'll see you around, then."

He nodded, and I ran out to catch the bus. As I dumped into a seat, I realized that I was… relaxed. Smiling. Feeling better than I had in months.

Perhaps I should have told him? No, there was no reason to… yet. He should know all about nasty breakups after all; he didn't need to hear about mine.

He could probably have related, though. I needed someone to do that. But he probably wouldn't be the one.


	2. Chapter Two

Two months passed. I saw him… not often. Not more than once a week. I would go to the bus stop and look for him, and if I could see him through the window, I'd go inside. If I didn't see him, or if the sun blocked my view, I'd go home to my studies, and to Sandy.

Sandy and I shared the same taste in music, and had the same humor. She reminded me a little of Cy. She had several times as many piercings and tattoos. But we never came as close, of course; we were friends and shared expenses, but had very different social lives, and only a few common friends.

December came, and Sandy went to spend Christmas with her parents. I was going to spend one more night in the apartment, and then go back to my own family. They had invited me only a week earlier, and that had broken up something cold inside me that was now slowly melting away after an ice-age in my chest. They didn't hate me for avoiding them for three years. They had forgiven me.

I had spent the last winter holidays alone in the crummy little apartment I lived in for nearly two years. Now I had a family again. And right now, if I had to choose between my family and a person I loved… I don't think I would have made the same mistake again.

Or maybe I would. I don't think I remembered what it was like to love anyone.

Mik had invited me out. It had taken me completely by surprise; neither of us knew where the other lived, and we had only met on the café, on neutral ground, until now. But we were only going as friends, to a club that wasn't too noisy for him and not too foofy for me.

As friends… It had been five years. We had both moved on. We could be friends.

But I was – terrified. That it might become something more. I didn't dare, couldn't take it any further, but some part of me wanted and needed a relationship now, a safe one, like the one I had with him once… But whatever I wanted was irrelevant, right? Because he probably wouldn't touch me with a red-hot poker.

Friends. Just that.

I went to fetch the mail before I showered.

The doorbell rang. I walked over, and opened it. My eyes didn't communicate with reality; they hung about his chest-height, trying to understand what they saw.

"Harley?"

I looked up, meeting his eyes, jolting back to reality. "Mik? I… shit, what time…"

"Two hours since you were supposed to meet me." I barely heard the tone of his voice, but he probably took it as an insult. I looked down at myself, realizing that my plans of showering and changing had evaporated hours ago. Hours? Where did all that time go…?

"I'm -- I'm sorry. This really isn't a good time… How did you find my address?"

"Never mind that. Why didn't you come?"

He was angry now. Suspicious. But I didn't have room for guilt, even if I wanted to feel guilty, feel awful about forgetting him like that. It would be better than everything else.

"I don't think I can go out tonight," I said, looking away. "I'm sorry, something came up…"

He said nothing for a few moments, and I looked up, wondering what he was waiting for.

"Is he in here with you?"

'What? No!'… was the answer bursting through my head and never reaching my mouth. My breath hitched, stopping any words I might want to say, anything I wanted to tell him or explain. I thought he'd turn and leave before I slowly managed to shake my head.

"Harley? What is wrong?"

"N… nothing. I just got someth… some shocking… news. That's all. I'm sorry I didn't call you…"

"I called you."

"You did?" I remembered it the moment I heard him say it. "Oh… yeah… um, it said 'Unknown number', and I…" I knew I didn't have to explain. He saw the scattered pieces of cell phone on the floor behind me, and the remains of the mirror I had thrown it into.

"Do you want me to come in?"

He could have said 'do you want me to leave?' I just nodded and stepped aside to let him in. He might laugh when he saw it, savor that I was hurting like he did. But I didn't care; I needed a human being to be around right now.

When we came into the living room, I pointed to the box before he could say anything. He was inside, he'd find out anyway. I drifted to the other end of the room, like the area around him was infected. I fingered with one of Sandy's odd, metallic decorations, and heard him touch the wrapping paper, pick up the card.

"Are these…?"

"No. They died years ago. These are new. Poor buggers."

I heard the dry rustle as he picked up the box, making the contents move. I shivered, the three dead tarantulas still a picture etched into my retinas. Not as much gross as symbolically terrifying.

"Do you want me to throw them away?"

I nodded, still not looking his way. He didn't take them to the trashcan, but left the apartment with box, card and wrapping paper. How long until he would return? I stood still, wondering when I could be sure that he wasn't coming back, when I could do something – anything – to remove any sensible thoughts I might have left.

He came back a few minutes later, and I hadn't moved. He stood in front of me, and I wanted to look up, but I was afraid of what I might see. Glee? Pity? I stared at his chest, suddenly remembering how broad and warm and comforting it used to be whenever I was down. My arms were folded, and my nails dug into my own arms as I restrained myself. Then his hands were on my shoulders, pulling me close, and I flung my own around him, pressing close to the unmocking warmth of his embrace. I shook violently, air heaving its way in and out of my lungs as the shock and terror flooded out from their imprisonment like a million spiders. I babbled, and I knew it was babble, I knew that there wasn't a single coherent word in it, but the mouth murmuring comforting sounds against my forehead and the hand gently rubbing my back told me that he knew and understood like no one else ever had.


	3. Chapter Three

I came to in the couch, and it was dark outside. I lifted my head from Mik's chest, looked around the room, blinked slowly. The arm around me moved, pulling me up fully. I pulled a hand through my filtered bangs, while running a sort of reality check, remembering the events of the past… minutes, hours, whatever.

"Harley. What has he done to you?"

I cringed. It was the first time anyone had asked me straight like that. Everyone moved around it, trying to forget it. Hell, _I_ tried to forget it.

"Mik, I…"

"You don't want to talk about it?"

I was to tired and shook up to lie. "Yes I do. I really do. But why do you want to hear it?"

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. In the corner of my eye I noticed his rumpled shirt and open jacket, and wondered how long he had been holding me.

"When you left," he began slowly, "I wanted to warn you. But I didn't really have a reason to. I could only have said that I saw… things, the simplest actions or words, that hinted to something else than the surface you fell in love with. I wanted to say that I had seen it before, and that you ought to watch out."

"I wouldn't have listened," I said.

"The spiders…"

"I know. The first, hateful little 'gift' from Tybalt I ever saw. Symbolic, isn't it?"

A few moments of silence passed, and I felt the lulling comfort of his warmth as we were sitting close enough to almost touch.

Then Mikhael finally said: "I should have warned you. I should have told you how much of Tybalt I saw in Skids."

Skids. The name made so little sense. Only a year after I moved in with him, he said he wanted to put the childish nickname behind him. It was 'Gio' or 'Giovanni' after that. The name 'Skids' belonged to someone else, it belonged to a man I had loved, really loved…

I started to talk. The words floated from my mouth, clear and undisturbed. Telling rationally about the small changes, about quitting my job at the night club because he got a good job and told me to quit, about how he always assured me that he loved me, even after things started to get bad. And about the day two years ago, when he lost his job and finally snapped, really snapped, so the rest of the world could see it as well.

"I stayed with him for a while after that," I said as the story approached its end. At some point we had moved to lie on the couch, my hands clinging to him, showing all the emotions my voice lacked. He hadn't said a word, only listened, and I forgot all my suspicions and the warnings screaming in my head. I wanted to trust him, I needed someone to trust, anyone.

"I thought perhaps I could control him, protect the rest of the world from him and vice versa. Until I came home and found him with that girl. Shit, she was only a kid. If I had left there and then, I would have returned. I would have convinced myself that he needed me, and gone back to him. But when he saw me, he said…"

I managed a small, desperate laughter, the only breach in my monotone voice. "I don't know why that single sentence made such a world of difference, but I think it really drove it home, made me realize absolutely everything that I had refused to realize. He asked me, he actually asked me, to 'join in'."

I laughed again, less forced this time, a mocking sound, ridiculing him, myself, the whole situation, the whole fucking relationship. I laughed and laughed, my fingers digging into Mik's ribs and my forehead pressed hard against his shoulder and teeth clenched so hard it made my head hurt. He held me through the manic laughter, through another fit of wrecking sobs, and through the silent, cleansing crying. And finally, he just held me, as my mind slid into near comatose relaxation.

After a long while, I sat up. Mundane needs made themselves heard, and I went to the bathroom, taking a little time to compose myself and clean up the skin-deep mess a well. He went in when I had finished, and I went to the kitchen, made coffee, did things, normal things, calmness settling in the room.

The fridge was depressingly empty, since I was going away the next day. Next day? I looked out, seeing the first rays of dawn between tall buildings. I wasn't leaving before the afternoon, I had time to thank him, and get some sleep.

I poured the coffee as he got in, and handed him a cup. "'Fraid it's a bit old, Sandy and I aren't big coffee drinkers so a packet lasts a while."

He took the cup, and leaned slightly against the fridge. I rested against the counter, not bothering to sit by the tiny kitchen table. It felt good to get the blood flowing again after having cramped all muscles for so long.

"So what about you?" I said, breaking the comfortable silence. "I've been doing all the talking tonight. Thank you for listening, I really needed it. But don't you have anything to say? Something that would make my embarrassment at pouring my heart out a bit smaller."

He smiled, and moved the cup to his mouth, just smelling the contents, looking thoughtful for a moment. "All I can offer in that area is our breakup, and you know all about that."

"Not all of it," I said. "Just my side."

He shrugged and moved the warm cup in his hands. "Isn't that the same thing? It was bound to happen, right?"

"I suppose. We grew apart, as they say. But not that much. It had just become apparent that we needed to do something to stay together. And we wanted to, right? Both of us did."

He nodded slowly. "We didn't do much together. It wouldn't have been too hard to change that."

"But then Skids suddenly decided he didn't want to wait for The One to sweep him off his feet anymore," I said, finding that my voice contained less bitterness and more wistfulness that I had expected. "He just… radically changed my days in a period where they were getting stale. I didn't even realize that he was courting me; he was just being more intensively friendly than before. More focused. Less Skids, really. Did you notice it before me?"

"I didn't," Mik admitted. "But Torres did. He was the one who made me aware of it. I had just noticed that you were happier, which cheered me up."

"Cy noticed?" I said incredulously. "Well, I guess we did more stuff without him, but…"

"He was in love with Skids."

_"What?" The contents of my cup jumped, spilling a few hot drops over my hand. I put the cup on the counter and wiped my hand before turning back to him again. "But how did you know that."_

"By accident," he shrugged. "But he was more intensely aware of Skids' state than I was of your then. Because I took you for granted, while he was in love and pining. I think I envied him that."

"Wow…," I said, considering it. "After Skids and I got together officially, Cyanide avoided me. When I finally confronted him, he basically told me to fuck off and never talk to him again. He hated me. I thought he felt that he became the third wheel all of a sudden, and that that was why he… Shit, I guess I never saw it, he was always so insistent on being the straight one. Like he tried to avoid the whole stereotype that says having a gay friend makes you less of a man yourself."

I fell silent, until he returned to the subject: "So when you left, I was devastated. I still loved you, and it was the second time I had a breakup with… unresolved issues."

His tone was neutral, and I winced at the indirect comparison of me and Tybalt. That was certainly a position I had never imagined myself in.

"But bygones are bygones, right?" I said. He seemed to be lost in thought, and didn't answer. Then he slowly put his untouched cup on top of the fridge, and then looked at me, straight at me, holding my eyes. I squirmed a little under the intense scrutiny, but at the same time it spoke to my more primal parts, reminding me that every one-night-stand I had tried to achieve to keep physical needs from boosting other problems, had failed, for so many reasons, one of which was in this kitchen…

"So…" I started, preparing a babble about how I had kept him all night and he probably needed to sleep and I had to pack and get ready – when he was suddenly a lot closer, one warm hand holding my upper arm just where the sleeve of the t-shirt ended, the other lifting my face and…

I froze, my whole body going rigid at the touch of his lips. Gentle pressure, soft and intense, chaste and infinitely passionate, he kissed me, and I closed my eyes, wondering when I'd wake up from the dream this time. But this wasn't like those countless dreams where I was back in the safety of his world, our world. Those dreams had seemed disturbingly real, while this, reality, was much… too… unbelievable… 

When he lifted his lips away, I was gasping for breath. I backed away the minute space between me and the bench, trying to stop from shaking.

"Why?" I finally managed. His hands hadn't left me, and I kept looking up at him. I wanted to move away, but his light grip was as efficient as any chains, making me stay just because I wanted the touch.

"Because of what we had once," he whispered. "And because pain ends somewhere."

Whatever sense those words made to me then became unimportant as he kissed me again. And this time I moved into his touch, clinging onto him like I had done all evening, offering him the last of my caution and fright to take it away from me.

And he took it. 


	4. Chapter Four

In my narrow, single bed it was easy to know what had happened the moment I awoke.

I was alone. Spread out over the bed, lingering in his warmth. But he wasn't there.

I suddenly felt cold to the bone. My rationality jumped in, reminding me that we didn't love each other, that we were through, that this had been an act of… of cleansing, of removing what was old.

But reason couldn't remove the new, fresh fright piercing my heart. He was gone. I would never see him again. I thought the worst-case situation without even questioning it, and leapt out of bed, pulling on a pair of sweatpants.

When I opened the door, I heard the coffee maker running, and breathed out, slowly coming out of the dreamy state that sized up emotions to ridiculous extremes.

If nothing else, we were still friends, right?

I entered the kitchen, and found him by the counter, staring dispassionately at the steady drip of coffee into the pot.

"I thought you had left," I said, smiling nervously. He kept staring at the pot.

"I was going to."

"What?"

He looked at me, eyes dark. "I was going to leave. I was going to take you out as a friend, seduce you and leave you."

The fear returned again, and its size suddenly didn't seem ridiculous. I gaped, no words escaping my rapidly tightening throat.

"You asked how I got your address. I got it from your university. In case you would get too drunk to tell me where you lived. I have seen it when we have met, that you are lonely and miserable, even if you put on a smile. I was going to take advantage of that. Because you could move in and out of relationships with no problems, it seemed. You were always happy before; no problems seemed to get to you, you floated on top of life, happily ignoring whatever pain you caused. For me, for Torres, for your family. They kept in touch with me, you know. You always got out on top."

He turned around, leaning back against the counter, staring at the floor.

"At least that is the picture I have made for myself," he said, voice low and bitter. "But you've hurt too."

That seemed to be all he had to say. A minute of silence passed, before I finally broke out of my paralyzed state.

"So now what?" I said bitterly. "You'll just leave and forget this ever happened? Disappear?"

He looked up, meeting my eyes. "No. That was what I was planning to do yesterday, before… before everything. I just wanted to tell you what an asshole I was planning to be. And ask you to forgive me. I helped you through something yesterday, but whether you noticed or not, you helped me too. I'm sorry for wanting to hurt you."

I managed to get a grip on myself. I didn't run off, I didn't hit him, I didn't snap. I stood still, looking into his eyes, letting the words settle.

"When did you decide not to leave?" I asked.

"Just before you woke up."

"So you still wanted to hurt me even after…"

"No. I had forgotten all about it. I forgot it when I saw the spiders. I didn't remember it until I woke up. And then I knew that I couldn't leave. But I couldn't stay unless I told you everything."

"And now?" I asked, stepping forward. He straightened up.

"Start over?" he suggested. "As friends – for now?"

He held out a hand, and I walked over, took it and pulled myself into his arms.

"Yeah," I whispered. "Friends."~

~ ~ ~

Fin


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